Being Fruitful
“He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”
John 15:2
Think about pruning a tree for a second. How do you think that tree feels before the branches are prune? Maybe a little out of shape, maybe a little heavy, maybe is so it doesn’t fit in its “bark.”
Do you think the tree likes being pruned? Doesn’t like having his branches cut off some of its limbs that aren’t dead cutaway? You think of the tree had feelings they would hurt?
You see I didn’t understand this verse until just the other day.
It took a young child to bring the real meaning of light.
See I had a tree in my backyard when I planted it about half the tree died. Show the next spring when the green leaves came on we took a saw out and pruned the dead branches away.
When we were done, to say the least, the tree looked bare, almost naked.
As we were pruning my youngest son asked me, “dad doesn’t this hurt the tree?”
I replied to him, “Well son, I’m sure it doesn’t feel great! Wait a couple of years and we’ll see how beautiful the tree is without all these dead branches.”
You see God does the same thing to us. He takes a step back, he looks at us, and he sees all of these dead or dying branches. Then he gets his saw out him starts trimming those branches away.
In the beginning, it hurts, sometimes a lot. However, God knows what’s best for us; he is looking at what will look like in a couple of years after he prunes us.
When we’re in the middle of a bad situation, “getting pruned.” We don’t usually see the result. We hardly ever can see the results.
Today we want to encourage you to know that no matter what situation you’re in God is in full control.
Prayer
Lord God, we come to you today to ask ask for your help. We ask that you allow us to let you prune us. To let you help us grow into what you need us to be. God, we are so grateful for the life that you give unto us every day. Some of those days are harder than others, and some of those days seemed almost too easy. Lord, we know you always see the bigger picture. So we pray that you help us trust you oh, trust your knowledge; trust everything you do for us. Because we know oh, God we know that you always have our best interest at heart. Thank you for “pruning” us.
Amen
Prayer
Lord, today we come to you with HAPPY hearts. We are so grateful that you give us the opportunity to change the lives of those around us. We are grateful that you give us the wisdom to change our lives and the lives of those around us. And you make it so simple. We can do it with a single smile. God today I would ask that you help us to smile more. The next time we see someone down, help us to smile for them. The next time we are down, help us to remember that you gave us the best gift ever. The ability to know you, your son, and the holy spirit. God, we are so grateful for everything you give us.
We ask all these things in your Precious Son's Name
Amen
A Little More
The other day I got a call from one of our clients.
I love talking to our clients so I always smile when I answer the phone.
“Hey Dan, one of my drivers is pulled over and they are saying that our permit doesn’t cover what we weigh. Isn’t that why we hire your team to make sure that these things don’t happen!”
My smile immediately vanished.
I was shocked because my team is amazing. and it’s not like them to miss something like 20,000 lbs on a permit.
So, I asked him, “Who have you been working with, and who was the one who called our team to get the permit?”
To get to the bottom of the problem I needed the details.
They gave me the details.
My next call was to my team. Then after I got the details I got them started on getting new permits to get the problem fixed. I’m a solutions guy, not an excuses guy.
But I NEED to know the real reason why it happened so that we can fix the issue.
My next call was to the driver so that I could see exactly what happened.
I knew he was going to be upset. He was pulled over and they were going to give him a HUGE ticket. I wouldn’t be happy either.
so……
I made sure not to smile when I made the call. I had a serious look on my face. As we chatted I learned that he was the person who gave his weight to our team. I asked where he got the weights from and how in the world they were off by over 20K lbs!
That’s when he told me that he might have gotten the wrong scale ticket from the weigh station where he originally weighed.
Immediately my heart leapt with joy, this is NOT our fault!
Now to get the problem resolved and get this driver back on the road was my only goal. I was not going to assign blame or make anyone feel bad.
Hey, we all make mistakes. I do it multiple times every single day.
The owner of the company shot me a text. I'm getting permits from the big guys. They won’t make these mistakes that cost me time and $$$$$.
No problem. Let me know if you need anything. We are here to help.
Well……..
After they called the “BIG Guys” they called me about 30 minutes later.
Hey, we can’t get an Idaho permit until Monday. It’s Friday night. And we need to drop this load off tomorrow afternoon.
I told him that I would NOT make any promises.
But my team went to work!
Guess what????
We got the permits that the “BIG Guys” couldn’t get.
My team had the Idaho permit in less than 20 minutes. For the right weight this time.
Here’s the point of all this.
When things don’t go right, smile. I have taught my whole team this.
That right there is how we got the permits. They smiled as they worked and it didn’t take any time at all.
Ok, there might be a little knowledge that went into this too. Lol
Next time you need anything DOT, don’t call the “Big Guys” , call the team who can get it done!
Dan Greer
